#bourne shell

[mentalisttraceur-software]

I think it's a really good sign of growth and healing that I'm finding myself increasingly repulsed by the kind of portability extremism that once compelled me.

One of the biggest and worst examples was shell scripts. /bin/sh was the Bourne shell in UNIXv7 (prior to that, there was the Thompson shell, and thankfully I managed to keep my mind cancer from metastasizing further backwards in time to try to achieve compatibility with that shell too). After the Bourne shell, every /bin/sh on every system was a Bourne-like shell, and if you thought that meant you could just write something that worked, take a glance at:

GNU Autoconf's Portable Shell documentation.

Sven Mascheck's various pages.

Paul Jarc's "lintsh" notes.

Ubuntu's "dash"-as-/bin/sh guide.

and others which you can find from there.

Now, a healthy person simply rejects this problem space. But for years, I was obsessed with writing shell scripts which would work on all /bin/sh still in production. It started as a growing annoyance with so many programs depending on bash - I was otherwise happily using a system with a more minimal shell at the time, and the limitations of my beloved Nokia N900 as a pocket Linux device gave me some real reason to prefer "reducing bloat" back then. Of course if it mattered to me, my compassion generalized it to everyone else in the same boat (everyone real or imagined... and in this case, mostly imagined). Then one day in the first year of my career as a software developer I got into a small argument with a coworker about them mandating #!/bin/bash instead of #!/bin/sh in our shell scripts - after he asserted that it was unreasonable to expect developers to remember what is or isn't a bashism, my maladaptive narcissistic cope reflexively kicked into full gear and now I had something to prove.

I still remember bits of that evening after work. It's... kinda horrifying looking back on it, because I was aware of what was happening in my mind. I was aware that I was basically starting to involuntarily, compulsively terraform my own preferences and values about shell scripts, from the modest and real and practical "I just want scripts to run on my N900s (BusyBox ash implementation for /bin/sh), and maybe also my Debian boxes (dash for /bin/sh)" to some perverse "principled" stance with poorly-defined scope which was divorced from any specific concrete goals. I had seen this runaway snowballing of artificial nitpicky values happen in my mind before, and I recognized that what I was doing in my head was feeding it, that it was happening again or that I was making it happen again, and I felt some conflict with that, I could see how it was bad... but back then I didn't know how to do anything about it. I didn't know how to diffuse those wants back then. I could in some technical sense, have chosen to not do it, but I couldn't stop wanting to, and I couldn't stop rationalizing it.

So I became the kind of guy that basically had every caveat mentioned on the above pages memorized. I even went as far as having a Solaris 10 VM, some old Android phones, and a PDP emulator running UNIXv7, so that I could test things not mentioned or not elaborated on those pages. But since it's really costly to remember so much trivia, I only remembered the caveats themselves, not necessarily which shells/systems they applied to. I could tell you off the top of my head "well you see, on some shells, 'set -e' will not affect the code inside functions", but I couldn't tell you which shells - I just had the caveats grouped by

"only matters on systems that no one runs anymore",

"only matters in situations you/we will never need to be compatible with (like Solaris 10's /bin/sh)",

"only matters if you want portability on Windows ports of UNIX-y shell stuff",

"only matters if you want portability beyond just Linux", and

"only matters if you want portability beyond just 'bash'".

I also used to have a little template for shell portability disclaimers that I would add to my shell scripts, deleting/re-adding lines as-needed:

# This script is compatible with Bourne and POSIX shells. # EXCEPT for the following exceptions (last verified on YYYY-MM-DD): # Comments (Appeared in 1981, still not universal around 1987) # Functions (First appeared in SVR2 Bourne shells in 1984) # `mkfifo` (First appeared sometime circa 1984, possibly earlier; unsure) # `test -p` (First appeared in SVR1 Bourne shell in 1983). # `wait` exit status (Missing in Almquist shell until 4.4BSD in 1993) # `hash` builtin (First appeared in SVR2 Bourne shells in 1984) # `type` builtin (First appeared in SVR2 Bourne shells in 1984) # $() is used instead of `` (not supported by some ancient Bourne shells) # `shift` when no positional parameters (broke some old MIPS RISC/os shells) # ${VAR%glob} substitution (Solaris (<= 10) /bin/sh does not support it) ...

That version of me looked at my old esceval.sh with pride, as if it was important or worthwhile. It tries to use modern-ish POSIX shell features but falls back to portable shell if it must. Basically every single line has at least one detail that is a deliberate portability choice. Almost every degree of freedom has been optimized for portability (and then some performance optimization within that) - change almost anything and it's probably less portable.

I revisited "esceval" for the first time in years this past week, and I noticed something really nice. I no longer have enough appetite for this portabiliy stuff. I'm too acutely aware, down to my motivating emotions, that it's a waste of my life. I'm once again in touch with actual concrete use-cases and benefits that have high odds of coming up in my life. I've re-learned to value myself and my goals more than this portability shit.

So I'm going to delete the portability fallback from "esceval.sh". I'm done trying to figure out what the portability fallback looks like for the other esceval pieces that I still want to finish. Unless I'm being compensated better than I can get elsewhere, I'm never again going to lift a finger to support Solaris 10 /bin/sh, or Android phones lobotomized to the point of not having a "printf" command in their shell, or anything else that isn't at least POSIX-compatible shell. And even then I'd suggest implementing that by writing a backpiler from modern shell to older. Maybe I'll answer portability questions if I still remember the answer and can say it off the top of my head - I enjoy helping people after all.

And it goes deeper than that. I'm very done giving Bourne-style shells nearly as much time and effort as I've given them so far. They're good DSLs for redirecting file descriptors and sorta okay DSLs for invoking and managing processes, and that's about it. As an unfortunate practical matter, Bourne-style shell is one of the most widely deployed programming language families, so if the goal is "I want to be able to give this tiny CLI to a coworker so they can run it on their machine with minimal human hassle", it can be nice to have a #!/bin/sh implementation (but so is having a couple statically compiled executables for the common platforms and a cross-compiler ready for the rest, or a Python script, or [...]).

It'll take me some time to figure out exactly where that balance is, and to fully unlearn the various hangups and compulsions that I've built up which motivate writing a /bin/sh script instead of something else, but what I've been doing so far definitely ain't that balance, ain't even close, and now I finally have a strong-enough hunger for breaking free and moving in the direction of that healthier balance.

[mermaidsirennikita]

Usually when I'm reading my brain doesn't assign characters any permanent, significant attributes and just kinda has them exist as blobs with names that it labels "hot" and "not hot." This makes fancasting super difficult, but for whatever reason the moment my brain read about Bourne it was like "oh that's Theo James." I honestly don't remember any visual description of him as a character cause my brain just goes "you don't need this information, you already know he's Theo James." This has never happened to me with any other character, idk why Bourne has me by the throat.

Dude are you in my brain because HARD SAME. During this re-read, I keep thinking of Theo. My perception of characters is similar to yours. When I do fancast, I'm often less about how much an actor is like the character's physical and more about how they fit the character's Vibe, but I think Theo happens to both fit the description of Bourne (tall, dark, handsome in a very classical way, but with a kind of arrogant, chip on his shoulder sense--not that Theo is necessarily that guy lmao, but he definitely plays that guy often) and the Vibe.

MacLean is never SUPER specific about her heroes physically, which I appreciate, save some defining features. (I often hate it when authors are overly specific in a way that makes it clear who they had in mind--and nothing makes me drop a book faster than a contemporary that outright compares a hero to a famous person, I will LOSE. MY MIND.) With Bourne, I think the main takeaway is: super hot in a conventional way that people in society notice without him having to make an effort (compared to Cross, who I think is supposed to be less immediately BAM in your face hot, but is super charismatic and slick as hell--Bourne doesn't have to be charismatic, what I'm saying is Bourne Has Pretty Privilege, he ain't slick, he thinks he is but he profoundly is nOT). Dark-haired... I think? (I don't think MacLean writes many blond heroes, tbh.) And when Penelope sees him in the beginning of the book, she basically says that he'd be beautiful if he didn't clearly have a darkness about him, aka his shitty attitude lmao.

Bourne also has me by the throat. He's honestly even better than I remembered. Has a gambling addiction--owns a gambling hell. In love with his childhood sweetheart--marries her and says it isn't about love at all. Finally realizes he's been an asshole and just sits there with a slab of beef on his eye because his friend just beat him up and is like "well what do I do NOW to be released from a prison ENTIRELY OF MY OWN MAKING!!!"

Also, the way he clearly has all these welled up memories of Penelope and like. So much affection. The way he's able to guess what she's trying to say during charades when nobody else can. The way she accidentally puts her tits on full display and he's like, leaning forward to get a better look (in front of her family, the SCANDAL). The way she praises him for getting the very obvious charades thing right and he like. Preens about it. He's like a junkyard dog that gets taken in and domesticated extremely easily and loves to sleep on your feet and do tricks for treats but when he sees a plastic bag he snarls at it because he needs you to remember he's a NASTY BIG BRAVE DOG.

Edit: just re-opened the book on to Bourne fantasizing about a row of little blond daughters and practically sighing with how much he wants to have Penelope's babies. As a note, one of the things I remember from a later book (I wanna say from her next series?) is the scandal sheets being like "local loser the Marquess of Bourne was seen climbing through a window to give his gaggle of daughters presents, is sad and pathetic now".

[talonabraxas]

"The Kiss" by Artus Scheiner Hymn to Pan by John Keats "O thou, whose mighty palace roof doth hang From jagged trunks, and overshadoweth Eternal whispers, glooms, the birth, life, death Of unseen flowers in heavy peacefulness; Who lov'st to see the hamadryads dress Their ruffled locks where meeting hazels darken; And through whole solemn hours dost sit, and hearken The dreary melody of bedded reeds-- In desolate places, where dank moisture breeds The pipy hemlock to strange overgrowth; Bethinking thee, how melancholy loth Thou wast to lose fair Syrinx--do thou now, By thy love's milky brow! By all the trembling mazes that she ran, Hear us, great Pan! "O thou, for whose soul-soothing quiet, turtles Passion their voices cooingly 'mong myrtles, What time thou wanderest at eventide Through sunny meadows, that outskirt the side Of thine enmossed realms: O thou, to whom Broad leaved fig trees even now foredoom Their ripen'd fruitage; yellow girted bees Their golden honeycombs; our village leas Their fairest blossom'd beans and poppied corn; The chuckling linnet its five young unborn, To sing for thee; low creeping strawberries Their summer coolness; pent up butterflies Their freckled wings; yea, the fresh budding year All its completions--be quickly near, By every wind that nods the mountain pine, O forester divine! "Thou, to whom every faun and satyr flies For willing service; whether to surprise The squatted hare while in half sleeping fit; Or upward ragged precipices flit To save poor lambkins from the eagle's maw; Or by mysterious enticement draw Bewildered shepherd to their path again; Or to tread breathless round the frothy main, And gather up all fancifullest shells For thee to tumble into Naiads' cells, And, being hidden, laugh at their out-peeping; Or to delight thee with fantastic leaping, The while they pelt each other on the crown With silvery oak apples, and fir cones brown-- By all the echoes that about thee ring, Hear us, O satyr king! "O Hearkener to the loud clapping shears, While ever and anon to his shorn peers A ram goes bleating: Winder of the horn, When snouted wild-boars routing tender corn Anger our huntsmen: breather round our farms, To keep off mildews, and all weather harms. Strange ministrant of undescribed sounds, That come a swooning over hollow grounds, And wither drearily on barren moors: Dread opener of the mysterious doors Leading to universal knowledge--see, Great son of Dryope, The many that are come to pay their vows With leaves about their brows! "Be still the unimaginable lodge For solitary thinkings; such as dodge Conception to the very bourne of heaven, Then leave the naked brain: be still the leaven, That spreading in this dull and clodded earth Gives it a touch ethereal--a new birth: Be still a symbol of immensity; A firmament reflected in a sea; An element filling the space between, An unknown--but no more: we humbly screen With uplift hands our foreheads, lowly bending, And giving out a shout most heaven rending, Conjure thee to receive our humble Paean, Upon thy Mount Lycean!"

[autumncottageattic]

countryhomemagazine

"To Autumn" by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,

And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

For summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep,

Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

Steady thy laden head across a brook;

Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

Among the river sallows, borne aloft

Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[macaronis-telegraph]

Queer WWI Literature

This is a very niche and limited category, so I’ve been trying to throw together a list of what I can find out there for anyone else who might also be interested. What follows are all books that contain LGBTQ+ rep of any kind, that also involve the First World War as a central theme.

Titles with an asterisk* are the ones I have personally read, and would be more than happy to talk about/answer any questions about their content/rep!

Written in the 20th Century

Alf, by Bruno Vogel (1929)

Despised and Rejected, by Rose Allatini (pseud. A.T. Fitzroy) (1918)*

Lads: Love Poetry of the Trenches, edited by Martin Taylor (1989)

The Memorial, by Christopher Isherwood (1932)

My Father and Myself, by J.R. Ackerley (1968)

The Prisoners of War: A Play in Three Acts, by J.R. Ackerley (1925)*

The Regeneration Trilogy (Regeneration, The Eye in the Door, The Ghost Road), by Pat Barker (1991, 1993, 1995)*

A Scarlet Pansy, by Robert Scully (1932)*

Strange Meeting, by Susan Hill (1976)

Written in the 21st Century

The Absolutist, by John Boyne (2011)

Across Your Dreams, by Jay Lewis Taylor (2016)

Alec, by William di Canzio (2021)

Ashthorne, by April Yates (2022)

Awfully Glad, by Charlie Cochrane (2014)

Bonds of Earth, by G.N. Chevalier (2012)*

The Boy I Love, by Marion Husband (2005)*

The Daughters of Mars, Thomas Keneally (2012)

Eleventh Hour, by Elin Gregory (2016)

The Fallen Snow, by John J. Kelley (2012)

Fighting Proud: The Untold Story of the Gay Men Who Served in Two World Wars, by Stephen Bourne (2017) – (I know I said fiction, but I’m going to leave this one here anyhow)

Flower of Iowa, by Lance Ringel (2014)*

The Great Swindle, by Pierre Lemaitre (2013)*

The Indian Clerk, by David Leavitt (2007)

The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing, by Mary Paulson-Ellis (2019) *

In Memoriam, by Alice Winn (2023)

The Lie, by Helen Dunmore (2014)

The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters (2014)

A Pride of Poppies, short story collection published by Manifold Press (2015)

Promises Made Under Fire, by Charlie Cochrane (2013)

The Shell House, by Linda Newbery (2002)*

Spectred Isle, by K.J. Charles (2017)

The Stranger’s Child, by Alan Hollinghurst (2011)

The Warm Hands of Ghosts, by Katherine Arden (2024)

Whistling in the Dark, by Tamara Allen (2008)*

Wild with All Regrets, by Emma Deards (2023)

The World and All that it Holds, by Aleksandar Hemon (2023)

This is a dynamic list, which I will continue to update whenever I find something new. If you know of anything that isn’t on this list and needs to be, please let me know!

[just-a-girl-0001]

Magic system that's based on programming:

Each spell needs a corresponding script to be used, you can't use magic without a script. And you can't use scripts without shells.

Shells are devices that interpret and utilize scripts written by the magic user. Originally, common folk had to write scripts via long and drawn out scrolls of black and white inkings. While script writers could use these scripts without shells, they took far longer to write. Furthermore, they had to be imbued into casting glass. Which would shatter upon use. This caused a lot of common folk to think of magic as a useless gimmick.

However, after the creation of shells and the practice of stuffing said shells with pre-written dictionary pages. Common folk could finally start understanding/practicing magic. Often dictionary pages were taken from libraries of well known common words, however due to the nature of shells some shell languages are more useful for certain tasks than others. Because of this, magic use overall ramped up. Even starting script schools for those who wish to alter and control aspects of the world.

Each script requires a proper syntax which corresponds to the shell's internal dictionary. While you can add pages from other dictionaries, it's seen as more cumbersome. So most script writers bring multiple shells with them. However, if you are more familiar with one type of shells syntax, there is no shame in modifying the shell.

Basilisk is a novice spell script language. Which focuses on controlling, observation, and automation. Most script writers start with this language, mostly due to the fact the school's mascot is so cute.(being two snakes with sea shells on their tails) even though it is seen as the easiest, a lot of new script writers fail to utilize it to its fullest potential. Unfortunately, a lot of experienced writers of other script languages, tend to dismiss the work of basilisk magic. The speed of the shells cast is slower, but they still work just fine for the average user.

Slash is less commonly used in comparison due to their shells being used in a majority of magical devices found within high magic environments. Often common folk see it as daunting. Going as far as to say it's the work of demons. But in reality, it is based on the old gods religion. Some who use it say they feel as if they were "Bourne again" but there is a majority of slash users that do not know of the old gods. Simply using slash as the shell that it is. Because of Slash's integration into a majority of magical devices. Users of flash can often manipulate these devices to do what they want. By inserting Slash scripts into a device's shell. The reason why most magical devices have shells built into them. Is because they often need to be modified and upgraded. While the pages that are utilized in the Shell are changed. Remnants of the original pages tend to linger. Allowing some to break open the shell, and assess the changes that occurred to it over the course of its life.

Finally sea shell is ranked amongst the hardest. These script writers often attempt to control reality and the perception of it. Those who know it tend to enjoy showing off their skills to the common folk. By making interactive books and other media like it.

But if one is truly adept, they can completely reconfigure incoming spells to be more in their favor, via Re-write injections. These scripts are shot into the shells of opposing script writers. Which then makes the script act differently from what was originally written. Sea shell users can do this because of the research they put into learning how common scripts are written. (You'd be surprised how much is simply copied from other script writers these days.) Because of this, it allows them to prey on the opposing script writer's vulnerabilities. Even so, there are Sea shell users that copy their scripts from other Sea shell users. This causes a lot of fighting within their community. Mostly from those who are more narcissistic.

The origin of the name Sea shell comes from the fact that the first shell was a seashell stuffed with scavenged papers. These papers were thought to be from an ancient underwater library. But the logistics of this don't seem to make sense. The first user of the seashell shell was recorded as an unnamed scriptwriter of old. Yet no one knows what they looked like, some suspect they were dark haired, and small in body. However, some like to believe they were a seafolk of some kind. However most of these recountings seem to be fiction rather than fact. One thing that we do have on the script writer's existence. Is the original shell that was used. Some believe that if one was to truly master the Sea shell language. The original seashell would speak to them, in the voice of the original script writer. However no one has heard their voice yet.

(I really had fun with this I hope anyone who sees this enjoys it <3)

[apoemaday]

To Autumn

by John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees, And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core; To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease, For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store? Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor, Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap’d furrow sound asleep, Drows’d with the fume of poppies, while thy hook Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep Steady thy laden head across a brook; Or by a cyder-press, with patient look, Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they? Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day, And touch the stubble plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn Among the river sallows, borne aloft Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn; Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft; And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[datcloudboi]

List of Films Turning 20 Years Old in 2024

The Alamo (the one with Dennis Quaid)

Alexander ((the Alexander the Great biopic directed by Oliver Stone and starring Colin Farrell)

Alien vs. Predator

Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy

The Aviator (the Howard Hughes biopic directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Leo DiCaprio)

Barbershop 2: Back in Business

Before Sunset

Blade: Trinity

The Bourne Supremacy

The Butterfly Effect

Catwoman

Cellular (an action-thriller starring Kim Basinger and Chris Evans)

The Chronicles of Riddick

Closer

Collateral

Dawn of the Dead (the remake directed by Zack Snyder and written by James Gunn)

The Day After Tomorrow

Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

Downfall

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Fahrenheit 9/11 (the Michael Moore documentary about how the Bush administration handled the aftermath of September 11, as well as their handling of the Invasion of Iraq)

50 First Dates

Finding Neverland (a biopic about J. M. Barrie, the guy who wrote “Peter Pan”. Barrie was played by Johnny Depp)

Friday Night Lights

Garden State

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence

Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

Hellboy

Hidalgo

Home on the Range (one of Disney's most often forgotten animated movies)

House of Flying Daggers

Howl's Moving Castle

I Heart Huckabees

I, Robot

The Incredibles

Kill Bill Volume 2

King Arthur (the one with Clive Owen)

The Ladykillers (the remake of the 1955 movie of the same name directed by the Coen Brothers)

Layer Cake (the first movie directed by Matthew Vaughn, who would go on to direct “Kick-Ass” and “Kingsman”)

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

The Lion King 1 1/2

The Machinist (the movie where Christian Bale lost like 60 pounds)

The Manchurian Candidate (the remake of the movie of the same name starring Denzel Washington)

Mean Girls

Million Dollar Baby

Miracle

Napoleon Dynamite

National Treasure

The Notebook

Ocean's Twelve

The Passion of the Christ

The Phantom of the Opera

The Place Promised in Our Early Days (the first film directed by Makoto Shinkai)

The Polar Express

Primer ((the time travel movie where you sit in a box for 12 hours and be back in time 12 hours. I think.)

The Punisher (the Thomas Jane one)

Ray (the Ray Charles biopic)

Resident Evil: Apocalypse

Saw (the 1st one)

Scooby-Doo 2: Monster Unleashed

Seed of Chucky

Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events

Shaun of the Dead

Shrek 2

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

Spanglish

Spider-Man 2

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie

Team America: World Police

The Terminal

13 Going on 30

Troy

Van Helsing

The Village

[a-ramblinrose]

JOMP Book Photo Challenge || September 22 || Hello, Autumn:    To Autumn by John Keats Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease,      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells. Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep   Steady thy laden head across a brook;   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours. Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,— While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn   Among the river sallows, borne aloft      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[bushs-world]

I have seen antis call sylki a toxic relationship. They call Sylvie abusive and Loki a simp. And I feel there is a simple reason for that. One, subversion of gender stereotypes in relationship and not conforming to accepted behaviour of conduct. Let me explain what I mean.

For the longest time, Loki has been the fandom sexy man. People romanticised his toxic masculine traits, his broken persona, his trauma, his damaged emotional state and unhealthy coping mechanisms because it made him appealing. He was literally the fandom 'brooding guy'.

And typically in media and fiction, the brooding guy has been paired with the gentle girl. This girl is often kind, shy and docile who offers kind words, affection, companionship and care. And this love and care of her coaxes the brooding guy out of his shell and heals him with the power of love. Most often than not, this girl only serves the purpose of being the emotional support crutch for the brooding guy. And most times, her entire world revolves around the brooding guy. He and his troubles turn into the centre of her universe and she drops everything in her own life to help him out.

A great example of this is Mary St. Jacques in the 'Bourne Identity' (the book, not the movie). Yes, she's shown as an accomplished and independent woman (and not exactly a gentle girl personality wise), but that doesn't change the fact that she drops her entire life and gets embroiled in the world of gangsters and assassins, all for a man she doesn't know from before and who holds her hostage at gun point. From then on, in the first book, her entire arc is helping Bourne find out who he is.

Now, this gentle girl often fulfills the 'I can fix him' fantasy. Where a woman with her unconditional love and support can fix a broken man. This is so often romanticised in romance novels to the point of expecting the women to keep up with abusive behaviour in the name of helping the broken, brooding man

And that's what many people were expecting Loki's love interest to be. They expected him/her to be totally devoted to Loki, to mother him, be the only person he was close to, be his emotional crutch and heal his traumas or atleast try to fix him.

But the series went the opposite way. Instead of Loki's love interest being the one to carry the burden of his trauma, they gave Loki an even broken women to fall in love with. Sylvie is drowned in so many of her own insecurities and traumas, that she can't be Loki's emotional crutch. That doesn't mean Sylvie doesn't care. Because she does and she has proven it many times. She tells him his mother must be proud of him, holds his hand on Lamentis, asks him if he was ok in ep 4, gives him her sword during the timekeepers chamber fight. She prunes herself to find Loki, gives him the tempad to offer him a way out and doesn't want him to follow her to Alioth because it could be a suicide mission.

She cares a lot, but not in the way women are expected to care for their men in a relationship. She doesn't carry the entire burden of his trauma or try to fix him. She doesn't shower him with outward, emotional displays of affection. Most of her affection is hidden in plain sight. And so she is called a smug, arrogant, abusive bitch.

On the other hand, instead of the Dom! Loki the fandom headcannoned, we got a soft, thoughtful Loki who cared for Sylvie, cheered her on, assisted her achieve her goal and loved her unconditionally. He loved Sylvie how a woman should be loved, but he gets called Sylvie's dog and a simp for it, because a man supporting his woman and respecting her makes him seem weak. People prefer the toxic, possesive, dominating behaviour as a sign of love over true respect and care.

And because of this thinking, people think Loki is weak. Because he doesn't dominate over Sylvie. Because he doesn't try to own her or control her.

Some say Loki was henpecked because he simply put up with whatever Sylvie said or did. But that is a lie because the moment he didn't agree with her stance in ep 6, he stood up against her and stopped her in ep 6. That means Loki was willing to stand up against Sylvie when he felt the need to. And that is a sign of true confidence and strength.

[autumneverleigh]

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;     To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease,     For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,   Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook     Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep   Steady thy laden head across a brook;   Or by a cider-press, with patient look,     Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-- While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn   Among the river sallows, borne aloft     Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft   The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,     And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

[fujowebdev]

Did you guys talk about making different characters for command line or powershell or bash or zsh? Or were you always set on giving us terminal as he is?

We had multiple discussions about how to handle different technologies that are hovering around the same concept. For example, the initial idea was to have Git be a single character, and then have him wear different clothes for his “GitHub”, “GitLab”, “GitTea”, etc. personas. Obviously, this is not what we ended up with.

We also had similar conversations about browsers. What’s the relationship between Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari? And then how do we handle the fact that Chrome and Edge are both Chromium clones? (Yes, the answer is we pay even more homage to Metal Gear Solid.)

Incidentally, we did not really have this discussion about Terminal. On the one hand, we didn’t want to overcomplicate what’s already a pretty scary topic for a lot of people. On the other hand, Bourne-again Shell (bash), Z Shell (zsh), and PowerShell are all different types of Unix shells, so the name fits for any of those.

At some point, we might have to reckon with the difference and come up with a “canon” explanation for their relationships. In the meantime, play around with the concept whichever way is hotter you see fit!

[autumnmylife]

To Autumn-John Keats

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

   Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

   With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

   And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

      To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

   With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

      For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

   Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

   Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

   Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

      Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

   Steady thy laden head across a brook;

   Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

      Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

   Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

   And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

   Among the river sallows, borne aloft

      Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

   Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

   The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

      And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

[fugengulsen]

To Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

 Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run; To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more, And still more, later flowers for the bees, Until they think warm days will never cease,    For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind; Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers: And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep  Steady thy laden head across a brook;  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,-- While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue; Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn  Among the river sallows, borne aloft    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies; And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

John Keats

[bjsmall]

04.07.23

Need For Madness game Linux install 1.

I installed the Need For Madness Muti-Player desktop game from Radical Play.

I selected the Linux installer and downloaded the file. Once it had finished downloading, I then unzipped the need-for-madness.zip Unix file and then opened the extracted folder. The game uses a script called Madness.sh, which requires a version of Java to be compiled and installed through the command line.

In Unix, a .sh file is a shell script which you can execute as a command. This is also known historically as the 'Bourne Shell' command-line interpreter.

After a bit of research I found out that the standard Linux installation script no longer works because it uses an old version of Java which is no longer officially available.

A contributor on the Need for Madness Reddit forum has re-written the script to use Zulu's OpenJDK. The script also fixes a bug where the game can get stuck.

Here is the link to the forum and OpenJDK Wikipedia link:

Here is a link to the script I used to get the game working:

Before continuing with the script, I made a copy of the .sh file and renamed the original file as a backup.

Here is an image showing the script copied into the Madness.sh file in the Xed text editor.

I tried launching Need for Madness using the modified script and found it worked very well. When I launch the game a message comes up with options for running the script, opening it in a text editor or viewing it in terminal. I selected 'Run'.

The game runs as a portable app in Linux that can be launched by clicking the .sh file from the unzipped folder in Downloads. This folder contains all the data files required to run the game.

See post below for some in-game Madness action!

[sakurabreeze]

ode to Autumn

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

     To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

     For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

  Drows'd with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

     Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep

  Steady thy laden head across a brook;

  Or by a cyder-press, with patient look,

     Thou watchest the last oozings hours by hours.

Where are the songs of spring? Ay, Where are they?

  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,—

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

  Among the river sallows, borne aloft

     Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

  The red-breast whistles from a garden-croft;

     And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

- Keats